“So, you just never found anybody to lie with?” she asked in a small voice.
Keirth groaned. He didn’t want to talk about this. “Not exactly. There have been times when...” Things weakened him occasionally. They pushed at his resolve. “I choose not to.” At least his head chose not to. From the way his cock was pulsing at him at the moment, it chose completely differently. But he wasn’t that kind of man. If he were to take advantage of Ariana right now—and he could, cushions be damned—he’d be no better than Risciter.
“Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” he said to her. He wanted to distract himself with something to make his raging hard on go away, and he wanted to go to sleep. Now.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
It was quiet. Good. Keirth filled his head with images of ships. Tomorrow, he’d find the chief, and they’d bargain. He wanted something fast but stealthy. A small ship would do just fine. He seemed to remember that the chief had a few of the T-6000 class in his junkyard somewhere.
“It’s only,” said Ariana, “that I don’t understand. I thought that men had...needs. My Aunt Tildy always said that women had to hold themselves to a higher standard, because men couldn’t help themselves and—”
“We aren’t all animals,” Keirth growled. “I’m not a beast. I don’t—” This was hard to explain. It was hard to think about. Images swirled back at him, from his youth. He remembered the way men leered at his mother. He remembered how much he’d wanted to protect her. “I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t be that kind of man. That’s all there is to it.”
Ariana was quiet.
But for some reason, Keirth found himself plowing on. “Do you think someone like Risciter gets a pass? He obviously has needs. Twisted needs. He and half the noblemen in the sector do whatever they like to women, and it doesn’t matter how she feels or if he hurts her. She doesn’t matter at all. My mother didn’t matter. She didn’t matter to any of them.”
“Is that why?” Ariana whispered. “You said you saw Risciter kill your mother. Did you see...? Did he...?”
“Rape her?” Keirth laughed bitterly. “I don’t know what you’d call it. That was her job. My mother was a prostitute.”
“He said that to me,” Ariana said from the other side of the cushions. “He said he usually did what he did to prostitutes and beggars, but he was excited because I was a ‘real woman.’ But you know, I don’t think that. I don’t think some people are more ‘real’ than others. And it doesn’t matter what your mother did, she didn’t deserve Risciter.”
“I wanted her to stop,” Keirth told the darkness. “I did everything I could to make her stop, but I couldn’t ever make enough money. It was awful. It was always awful. And the way they treated her...”
“I guess seeing it all from that angle must have made it not seem very... I can see why you wouldn’t lie with anyone.”
“But you see,” said Keirth, “that’s just it. Even if it’s not a business transaction, it’s the same. Maybe it’s worse. If I seduced some woman on my travels, shared her bed for a night, and then disappeared the next day, I’d be showing her the same contempt those men showed my mother. And I wouldn’t even be compensating her for it.”
“But if people get married, it’s not like that.”
“I guess not,” said Keirth. “But that’s not something I’m going to be doing. I live my life for revenge. And once that’s done, I’ll be arrested and hung, undoubtedly.”
Neither of them said anything for quite some time. After a while, listening to the even sound of Ariana’s breath, he was certain she’d fallen asleep. Maybe he’d shocked her. Or frightened her. This wasn’t an appropriate conversation to have with a woman like her. She’d pushed him, kept asking questions, but that didn’t mean he should have answered.
But then she spoke. “You really are a good man, Keirth,” she murmured. “A much better man than the ones who live inside the law. The ones I’ve known my whole life. I’ve never known anyone like you.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond. “You’re pretty unique yourself, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me that.”
He snickered.
She propped herself up on the cushions again, so that she was looking down at him. His eyes had further adjusted to the darkness, and he could see her features clearly. “What if Risciter’s dead, Keirth? What then?”